As most of us, in this freezing weather, rush from door to car and back again, with flaps and earmuffs and stocking caps jammed over our ears… and especially as we try to get in before dark… we don’t realize the startling drama taking place all around us. It’s mating season for the great horned owl.
Really? Now? In THIS weather!? It seems like slap in the face for Darwin. Scarcely any bird starts in even this early (let alone sooner), and the eggs are laid mighty early too – around here, often starting late in February. That cold sparse time is a mighty risky season in which to lay eggs and hatch out chicks. But all in all, the owls have been pretty successful with it. One thing they stint on, though, is nest building. They often commandeer the nest of an eagle, osprey, blue heron, or large hawk, none of whom actually need it at this time of year.
I spent five years volunteering with the Pennsylvania Atlas of Breeding Birds in the 1980s. With the commonwealth divided into 5000 equal-sized blocks we found the bird in half of them, and detected it as a confirmed or probable breeder in half of those. No doubt there would have been more, save for the inconvenience of the owls being nocturnal.
The great horned owl is “the” owl to most of us. This is the one we see pictures of, the one in cartoons, the one we conjure up in our mind’s eye and our mind’s ear. With those riveting huge eyes and those tufts that look like horns or ears (they’re neither), the great horned owl looks looks almost like a fellow human. One you won’t turn your back on, to be sure.
Even the hoo-hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo call is the stereotypical (or archetypal) sound of the owl.
Great horned owls are big birds. The chord of the wing – basically the cross-section from leading edge to trailing edge – is a foot or more. The span of the wings, though, can be well over four feet. The bird itself’s about two feet long. The span of the talons – on a single foot! – pushes eight inches when fully spread.
All this size is breathtaking, but I’m still amused to remember that lovely description by Kenneth Roberts – “one-fifth head and three-fifths bone, and the rest mostly voice.”
Those talons with their eight-inch spread exert 300 pounds per square inch when they seize something – which means that it stays seized. Their huge eyes give them excellent vision in the dark, and asymmetrically-placed ears help them bi-angulate moving prey.
Their wings are also formed in such a way, and operate in such a manner, as to minimize the sound that they make in flight – a superb adaptation for hunting.
Even so… not long after dark one night I was prowling outside the wooded edge of a quarry when I spotted a great horned owl shifting around high in a tree. I watched it (or at least its silhouette) for as long as I could (while the bird watched me).
At length the bird decided to shove off and sailed over the open field, and over me. I’d been watching the bird for some time. I knew what it was. I watched it coming. And the whoosh of its wings – however quiet they may be – still frightened me. It’s hard to explain, except to say that this is one mighty impressive bird.